After Elliot “Ally” Carroza-Oyarce, one of the top 10 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players in the world, retired last month because of a situation revolving around him dating fellow top player Zack “CaptainZack” Lauth when he was 16, everyone was waiting for CaptainZack to respond.
Nearly a month later, CaptainZack’s response finally came in the form of a TwitLonger. But it didn’t wrap up the situation. Instead, it opened up an entirely different issue—match fixing at big tournaments.
In his response to the situation, CaptainZack only corrected one thing that Ally said, while also bringing to light that their relationship’s darker days culminated in Ally throwing matches against other top players. Ally allegedly purposefully threw games after CaptainZack asked him to at 2GG: Prime Saga against Sota “Zackray” Okada in April and again at MomoCon when playing Nairoby “Nairo” Quezada in the losers bracket in May.
“The truth is I told Ally to throw to Zackray at Prime Saga and Nairo at MomoCon,” CaptainZack said. “I apologize to Nairo and Zackray for ruining the integrity of competition and to the entire community for letting my personal relationship affect an entire result.”
CaptainZack also specified how the interaction between himself and Ally went following their breakup, which was documented in Ally’s side of the story that’s since been removed from Twitter.
“The reason was because when I was doing poorly in tournament I was watching him always perform well and get top eight placings when I believed he should not have been allowed to play,” CaptainZack said. “We were together while I was 16, and during that time I was uncomfortable for almost the entire thing. I decided to end the relationship at DreamHack Montreal, and that was the first tournament I started getting frustrated at the fact he was able to play.”
CaptainZack, one of the top players from Smash for Wii U who specialized in playing Bayonetta, blamed a lot of this situation on Ultimate being so different and taking away his character. After dropping from a top 15 player in the world who finished second at Evo 2018 to 32nd in the latest rankings, his reason for frustration was clear.
Following his elimination in pool play at Let’s Make Moves, CaptainZack said he called Ally outside. Even though Ally said the two shouldn’t be together anymore, CaptainZack was in such a dark place that he “didn’t care anymore because of the emotional turmoil.” That’s when things took a turn for the worse and the fixing began.
“I literally feel like Ultimate is not my game and they just destroyed my character,” CaptainZack said. “I would purposely be mean to him in hopes he would leave me because I just didn’t want to end the relationship again. Then at Prime Saga, I told him to throw to Zackary, then MomoCon happened and the same thing vs. Nairo.”
The messages receipts between the two show that CaptainZack was holding the situation over Ally’s head as a way to make him throw the matches. He also apologized for the situation but said that he and Ally wanted to keep this entire situation private.
Overall, it looks like they tried to keep their throwing conversations under wraps, but someone had the information and was putting it out on Twitter. CaptainZack vowed to “never try to manipulate a match result again.”
Just hours after the post went up, CaptainZack’s sponsor, Polar Ace Esports, dropped him from its roster, citing “blackmail, match-fixing, and irresponsible behavior” as the reasons. The team will post a full statement in the coming days.
This entire situation will likely be reviewed by the Super Smash Bros Code of Conduct Panel. That panel ruled against Ally and handed him a lifetime ban from tournaments. A similar ruling will probably be made against CaptainZack in the future.
